Components of CRM

Time Management

This component includes single user and group calendar/scheduling as well as e-mail. Microsoft Outlook (as well as Lotus Notes) has become the calendar/scheduling standard within the CRM software industry. Moreover, bidirectional integration with MS Outlook is also becoming a de facto standard such that you can enter a date-specific activity or a contact from within MS Outlook and the activity or date is automatically input within the CRM software application, or vice versa. In addition to single user and group calendar/scheduling, the time management component also includes the creation and management of task lists as well as e-mail.

Sales/Sales Management

This component includes management of contact profiles and history, management of account information including activities, and order entry. Increasingly, this category includes proposal generators, which permit sales personnel to easily and quickly create a comprehensive and good-looking proposal that draws upon “boiler-plate” templates, as well as configurators that allow sales personnel (or increasingly the customer) to easily and quickly configure products and services based on specific customer needs. Pipeline analysis (forecasting, sales cycle analysis), sales metrics (e.g., win rates, loss rates), territory alignment and assignment, and roll-up/drill-down reporting functionality are also important considerations.

Telemarketing/Telesales

This component includes classical functionality such as call list assembly, auto dialing, scripting, call tracking and order taking. While traditionally this had been an outbound function, increasingly telemarketing/telesales handles inbound calls as well.

Customer Contact Center

This component includes customer service functions such as incident assignment/escalation/tracking/reporting, problem management/resolution, order management/promising, and warranty/contract management. Increasingly, customer service and support software includes a Web-based, self-service capability that customers can easily access using a browser. Improvements in customer self-service and support have been significantly enhanced by the use of knowledge management engines, along with the ability to apply the principles of one to one customer service. Assisted (e.g., interactive chat, assisted Web browsing) and self-service options coincide in the Customer Contact Center environment.

E-Marketing

The marketing component continues to receive considerable attention within the CRM software industry. Increased attention continues to be given to Web-centric encyclopedias and knowledge management, to market segmentation complemented by comprehensive campaign management life cycle tools, to lead generation/enhancement/tracking, and increasingly to partner relationship management (i.e., offering information links within the differing distribution channel layers). E-marketing facilitates one-to-one, permission-based marketing efforts. These marketing subcomponents often depend on customer data received from Web sites, and/or from a data warehouse enhanced by data warehouse tools such as data mining engines.

Business Intelligence

This component includes extensive and easy-to-use reporting capabilities. Fixed and ad-hoc reports are the norm, and to ensure the highest quality of reporting functionality many CRM software vendors are opting to integrate with leading third-party report writing tools (e.g., Crystal Reports, Actuate), which provide comprehensive report writing and graphical tools. Increasingly, CRM software vendors also are offering executive dashboards and personalized portals to facilitate and enhance the business intelligence (i.e., executive information) component within CRM automation.

Field Service Support

While field service support has not received a lot of attention in the past, increasingly CRM software vendors acknowledge that this is a large and growing market segment. The field service support component includes work order dispatching, part order/reservation, preventative maintenance schedules, and real-time information transfer via mobile technologies.

These first seven components constitute what is commonly referred to as the front office or customer-facing functions. The remaining three components comprise both business and technology issues. They deserve close attention given their impact on tomorrow's CRM industry.

E-Business

This component, which is primarily focused on functionality for the exchange of products/services via the Web, has become increasingly important given the growth of Web-based business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce applications. It is unlikely that CRM automation software will include every e-commerce component. What has become clear, however, is that CRM software will include a Web-based, front-end interface into commercially available, third-party e-commerce engines, which include shopping carts and storefront applications. This front-end interface will in turn support increasingly complex B2B and B2C e-business applications leveraging new technological advances in such areas as intelligence routing/click stream monitoring, content management/personalization, customer self service and cross selling/up-selling.

Multimodal Access

This component allows customers to reach your company via mail, phone (including leaving messages), fax, e-mail (including attachments), and the Web (including chat forums). This means that your CRM system must support multiple modes of access from your customers while simultaneously giving the impression that regardless of which mode or modes a customer uses, you maintain one holistic view of the customer at all times.

Data Sharing Tools

Although integration to legacy systems, the Web, and third-party external information sources has become increasingly important for an effective CRM system, this component is somewhat of a technical component. Sales personnel, customer service personnel, maybe even customers, may want to know the status of their orders, or whether an invoice has been received. Production-line and inventory managers may want to know the latest sales forecast. CRM automation software vendors either build native ERP hooks directly into their software, or seamlessly integrate into ERP systems via third-party “hook” software from companies like CrossWorlds, webMethods, and others. Data synchronization is also very important for data sharing. This includes mobile data synchronization from multiple field devices (wired or increasingly wireless), as well as enterprise synchronization with multiple databases/application servers. Many CRM software vendors have built their own data synchronization functionality, although we also see integration with third-party synchronization engines such as Synchrologic.

Unfortunately, there still are no data synchronization standards within the CRM industry, and all too often it becomes the onus of the customer to ensure the quality of a CRM automation software vendor's data synchronization capability, including whether or not the software synchronization process is scalable. There are now data synchronization testing facilities that can test scalability of a CRM software vendor's product (e.g., at Compaq, Microsoft, and elsewhere), so be sure to ask your CRM software vendor to show you their scalability test results if this is germane to your CRM implementation.